catch me if you can
by isawet
Summary: What do you think of my solution to the Kobayashi Maru?


"It's fine," Stiles pants, stripping off his jacket. "Give me your scarf," he tells Lydia, and she shoves it at him.

"Stiles," she says urgently, "I can do it, don't-"

"I need you to explain what happened, work with Deaton to fix it," he says, wrapping her scarf around his mouth and tying it tightly behind his head. "Best bet is-"

"Ginger," Lyda snaps, "I'm not an idiot. Derek's going to kill you, you know."

Stiles squares his shoulders, his fingers on the doorknob. "Not if Hargreaves does it first."

"Don't you dare die," Lydia says, and then Stiles is through the door and into the lab.

/

The first dead body Stiles saw wasn't his mother's.

His dad was giving him a ride in the patrol car, and Stiles was sitting back, so careful and flush against the back of the seat because he's not technically allowed to sit in the front and this is a special occasion but he has to sit very still and not lean forward at all and definitely not turn on the siren.

When Stiles hears the high pitched wail he sits up straight. "Not me," he says immediately. His dad snorts, and the tires crunch on gravel as he pulls over to the roadside.

"Stay in the car, buddy," he says, and Stiles fidgets. He taps his fingers against the car door, kicks his feet back and forth until they tap the underside of the glove compartment. He strains against the lapbelt to press his face against the window and breathe out fog to draw in with the tips of his fingers, twists around to poke at the metal grate between the front and backseat.

Then he undoes the buckle with a quick shove of his hand and slides out of the car and goes looking for his father, who is crouched next to a twisted, crumpled piece of metal that used to be a car, the glass of the windshield shattered and bloody. Stiles walks, looking down to see the shards embed in the rubber soles of his shoes, until his toes bump against something under a white sheet.

Stiles crouches, curious, curious, curious, thinks gleefully about telling Scott, lifts the sheet, and thinks _oh, oh oh_ and then stops thinking.

/

"No," Stiles says when Derek swings through his window with a whisper of leather on plaster. "unless you have a literary critique of _Catcher in the Rye_ to share with the class, we have nothing to talk about."

"Need your help," Derek grits out like speaking words actually physically pains him.

"That doesn't sound like an analysis of the symbolism of Holden's hat..."

"Stiles," Derek growls, and Stiles sighs, clicks the save button in his word processor, still considering angles of rebellion, conformity, suburbanism in the fifties. All of that grinds to a halt when he catches sight of Derek, and he gapes for a second until his brain comes back online.

"Holy shit," he says, because Derek has shrugged off his jacket and his thin tanktop is streaked through with blood, dry and tacky down his right side. He's leaning sideways against Stiles' window, head tilted down, slumped in against himself.

"It's been a long day," he rasps. Stiles snorts, fumbling at his phone.

"Witch?" he asks. They've been tracking a human that, to quote Scott "smells straight on funky," just outside the little pack's little ring of woods, someone who leaves behind birds with their necks twisted at grotesque angles and black-burnt symbols scorched into tree trunks.

"Stumbled on her," Derek says, "took care of it." Stiles yanks up Derek's shirt and uses one of his lacrosse practice shirts to wipe at the blood, his other hand opening the camera function on his cellphone. He's been documenting everything, building files on everything they encounter, every guess, hypothesis, any piece of data and evidence he can chronicle.

"You eat her?" Stiles asks, cleaning the last of the blood just below Derek's armpit. The skin is smooth and unbroken, and Stiles sighs.

"No," Derek says, eyebrows drawn close together in a scowl. "why do you think I always eat everything."

"You've already healed," Stiles grumbles, tossing his phone on the bed. "and maybe because you're a werewolf who is always threatening to kill everything."

Derek looks almost offended. "I don't eat everything I kill. And it wasn't my side." He tilts his head so Stiles can see the track of dried rust-red blood caked around his ear and trailing down his neck.

Stiles snorts. "If a crying Indian comes through my window next I'm kicking you all out." He puts his fingers on Derek's jaw to turn his head, peering into Derek's ear, and frowns. "Is it healed? I can't tell."

"Healing," Derek says. "Your fingers are cold." Stiles blinks.

"Uh-sorry?" He blows hot air on his fingers, tucks them under his armpit. Derek's tanktop is still rucked up, his hipbones exposed. "You've got a little..." Stiles uses his fingernail to scrape a fleck of blood off Derek's navel. Derek sucks in a breath, his stomach going concave. Something rumbles in his chest, and Stiles' mouth is open to start talking about how sometimes blood is bright bright red and sometimes it's so dark it's black and why is that, but he's completely interrupted by the sound of his father opening his bedroom door and promptly choking on his own spit.

Derek had twisted at the sound of the doorknob, put Stiles between them to hide his bloody shirt, ducked his head until his injured ear is facing the wall, and now he's staring at Stiles' laptop like it's the most interesting thing in the entire world.

"Dad," Stiles says, his voice unnaturally high. "We were just about to call you in."

"I seriously doubt that," his father says, voice like ice. "Downstairs, two minutes." Stiles nods jerkily, because he'd honestly expected his dad to demand an immediate explanation-giving them time to regroup and form a story must go against every cop instinct his dad's got. Everytime he uses his dad's trust against him he feels like shit and also simultaneously relieved.

"It's a twisty feeling," he says aloud. Derek stares at him. Stiles jolts himself into action, spinning to dig into a drawer. "Cover story," he says, "cover story, tutoring-yeah no, and hey, what happened to _super hearing_."

"A witch stabbed me in the inner ear." Derek sounds almost indignant. Stiles spins to point at him, an oversized hoodie clutched in his fingers.

"Those are not the actual words that came out of your mouth. You said you had a long day. You know what a long day means? School was a drag, work sucked, you burned your breakfast. Long day does not equal a wayward warty woman stabbing you in the brain with her witchy weapons." Stiles gives himself points for alliteration. Derek looks noticeably less impressed, but he pulls the sweatshirt over his head.

"What are we telling your dad?" Stiles throws a beanie hat at him.

"Cover your ear up." Stiles fumbles to find the shirt he'd used earlier, shoves it between the wall and the dresser where it won't be noticed. "We're going with secret friends who bond and I'm lending your poor sad Ponyboy self these books on SAT prep because you're trying to get your poor sad orphaned self into college. I knew those books would do something more useful than paperweights someday. Try to look downtrodden." Derek glares harder, the dark knit cap pulled low over his face. Stiles pulls the hood up, his knuckles brushing against Derek's hair. It's a lot softer than he thought it would be.

"Stiles, I look like the unabomber."

"Yes," Stiles snaps, gesturing jerkily at the door, "that is where your life is now. You're aspiring to look like the unabomber. Maybe if you took my advice and not gone looking for witches without the rest of your pack then-" Stiles has more, about how maybe if Derek made Danny his sassy gay best friend none of this would have happened and an entire section of a rant comprised of different ways of saying _look at your life look at your choices_, but Derek is looking at one of the pens lying on Stiles' desk like he's contemplating using it to finish the witch's job _just so he won't have to listen to Stiles say another word_, so Stiles just sighs and starts out the door, Derek trailing behind.

**  
Allison climbs through Stiles' window, waking him because she's banging on the sill in her rush, tumbling to the floor and breathing loud. "Get up," she says, shaking him, "Stiles get dressed."

"What's wrong?" Stiles rolls out of bed, reaching for his jeans. He pulls a hoodie over the soft tee he wears to bed, grabs a stick of gum from his desk.

"We have to go to Deaton's," she says, "Scott's been poisoned."

/

Stiles hasn't always rambled. He always talked a lot, even Scott's mom mutters about how he must have chattered his way out of the womb, but he used to leave the rambling in his head and speak only the conclusions.

"The swingset is my favourite," he says on the playground at six, "blue Jolly Ranchers are gross chalky sand the library has reading circle tomorrow mom's meatloaf."

"Freak," Jackson Whittemore says, and shoves him hard enough to topple him back into the tanbark. Stiles picks bits of mulch from his palms.

"I like green Jolly Ranchers," Scott says solemnly. Stiles considers him with six year old seriousness. Scott tilts his head at him. "Do you wanna dig a hole in the sandbox?"

Stiles imagines Jackson falling in the hole and never coming out. "Yes," he says, and they scramble across the sand to a corner, shoes slipping and stumbling, digging with their fingers until the sand paints their skin dusty-white and granules dig under their nails.

/

"I have a present for you," Allison announces. Stiles doesn't look away from his bedroom ceiling.

"What would Scott say," he says, pitching his voice high and girlish. "he goes on vacation for one week and his girlfriend succumbs to the Stilinski wiles."

"Your animal magnetism was just too strong," Allison says, and Stiles snickers. He sits up and scoots sideways to leave Allison a space to sit on his bed. A nylon bag slung over her shoulder scrapes on his windowframe.

"All the people coming through my window," he says, "I should set out a welcome mat. Maybe some snacks."

"Use one of the ones that sings when you step on it," Allison suggests, and they both pause to appreciate the gloriousness that would be Derek's face upon triggering a jaunty tune.

Stiles stretches. "I'm on vacation, and since you're not covered in blood or screaming I'm assuming this isn't an emergency for my inner Giles."

Allison slings the duffel bag off her shoulder and lets it thump on Stiles' bed. "This visit is for your inner Buffy." She draws out a little pistol, light grey with darker accents, not much bigger than her hand. "This is a Smith and Wesson 3193."

"Holy shit," Stiles squeaks, flapping his hands at her. "I know for a fact you don't have a permit for that, put it away!"

"Isn't your dad at the school shooting response seminar?" Allison peers behind him, looking confused.

"Yes," Stiles says, "but oddly enough committing felonies in his own house still makes me nervous."

Allison scoffs. "It's a misdemeanor and a two hundred dollar fine."

"It's a misdemeanor," Stiles says, mocking her tone, "if the gun is legally registered to you and legally purchased, which I highly doubt it is because _you are not old enough to do either of those things_."

Allison looks disgruntled. "My information is outdated."

"Knowledge is power!" Stiles does a little fistpump in the air and Allison stares at him. Whatever, he thinks, people who don't get School House Rock references don't get to judge.

Allison tucks the pistol away, and Stiles takes a breath of relief. "Don't you want to learn how to handle guns."

"I actually know how to handle guns," Stiles snaps, "I am the son of the sheriff."

"Do you know how to shoot them?"

Stiles flops back to lie facedown on his bed. His voice comes out muffled through the duvet. "Theoretically."

Allison taps her fingers on the mattress. "Lydia's family is vacationing in the Bahamas." Stiles thinks about Lydia on a tropical beach, side tie bikini in colours to match her hair.

"Yes please," he mumbles.

"And Scott's gone," Allison continues. Stiles turns his head to see her twist her fingers in the sheets. She's lonely, Stiles realizes, no school, no boyfriend, no Lydia and only a creepy pack of Hunters back at her house for company.

"It might be nice," he says, rolling over on his back. "to have something better than a fire extinguisher to use to defend myself. Fruitlessly, as I inevitably will be knocked unconscious in the least manly way possible."

"Another facet of your inner Giles," Allison says brightly, and Stiles half-laughs, sitting up and searching for his shoes.

"We are going so deep into the woods we'll need that gun to protect us from the cast of Deliverance," Stiles warns, "I don't need felonies on my record."

Allison bounces on her toes. "It would probably just be sealed under your juvie record." Stiles catches her by the sleeve with one leg over the windowsill.

"Hold tight, Helena Kyle. Contrary to apparent popular belief, I do have a working front door."

"It's wolfsbane," Deaton says, "but there's no gunshot wound, no lacerations, no injection marks of any kind."

Stiles takes Scott's hand, helps Allison shift him into her lap. She smoothes his hair off his forehead, and Stiles swallows hard. Scott's sweating, shivering and making tiny whining noises that punch Stiles right in the gut. Lydia makes a frustrated noise from where she's bent over a laptop.

"Are you sure he couldn't have ingested it?" she asks, "Someone slipped it in his food."

"No," Derek says from where he's been pacing a groove into the floor. "He would have smelled it, even him."

"Hey," Allison says loyally, but Scott makes a distressed noise and she goes back to shushing him softly, pressing kisses to his temple.

"It's weak," Deaton says, "it'll wear off soon, but if he gets dosed again..."

"What if he inhaled it," Stiles says, "yesterday you were sweeping the abandoned warehouses for that Hunter-"

"Hargreaves," Allison says, "bad news. He's wanted by the other Hunters too. Kills a lot of humans as 'collateral damage'."

"Right," Stiles says, "but when Lydia and I pulled his records we found that he has a Master's degree in chemical engineering."

"And he wrote his senior thesis on biological warfare," Lydia announces, spinning the laptop so they can see an article displayed on the screen. "It was published online."

How to Wage Germ Warfare on Sub-Humanoid Species, it says.

/

Stiles' mother died slowly, very slowly, until she lay in the hospital bed with grey chapped lips and spoke nonsense in tiny whispers, throat parched constantly and skin like thin paper.

Stiles remembers, mostly, how nice of a day it was when they buried her, Stiles' skin sun-warm under his suit jacket and bright blue skies overhead. He also remembers the silence, how it buzzed in his ears and grew louder and louder, like snow on the television set, static screaming in his ears until he filled it with his own voice.

Derek Hale is the loudest person Stiles has ever met.

/

"That's a ladies gun," Jackson says, half-sneering, and Stiles envisions sticking the bore-brush straight through Jackson's eyesocket.

"You'd just heal anyway," he sighs, and Jackson scoffs. Stiles is sitting against the wall in Derek's house, a clean towel spread out before him and gun oil shining slightly on his fingers, cleaning the little pistol and waiting for Allison. Jackson moves around him in a restless half circle, his lip pulled up to expose his teeth. Stiles refuses to make any wolf metaphors for how he's acting, and concentrates on the way Allison had showed him how all the pieces fit together.

"Little pistol," Jackson says, half-singing, "That's what, the opposite of compensating for something?" Stiles grits his teeth and tries to remind himself that the full moon is only few hours away, Jackson probably can't help this particular outbreak of assholery. that insult made no actual sense, and Stiles is mature enough to be the bigger person.

"I don't know," his mouth says without permission from his brain, "what do you do to compensate for the people you killed as Godzilla's less attractive younger brother?" Stiles freezes, and he can hear Jackson swallow, the scrape of his shoe as he rocks backwards from the force of Stiles' words. "Shit," Stiles mutters, and sits up straight, laying the brush aside. "Jackson-" he says, half rising, and stops again at the look on Jackson's face. He looks gutted, paler than usual. A muscle in his jaw twitches.

"It's whatever," Jackson mutters, and Stiles slides back down to the ground. He taps his fingers against the peeling wall and picks the wallpaper out of his nails. He brings his hands closer to his face to look at his nails and the acrid smell of old smoke wafts up to his nose. Stiles puts his hands down quickly and chews on his bottom lip. His leg starts jumping, up and down on the ground.

"I attacked you," Jackson says abruptly, and Stiles is startled into stillness for almost five full seconds.

Then he flexes his toes in his boots, curling them in and out again, over and over. "Yeah."

Jackson is leaning against the staircase, scowling at the steps like they've personally wronged him. "I never said I was sorry." He grits out the words from the back of his throat, expression twisted.

Stiles blinks at him. "Are you... saying it now?" Jackson's jaw clenches again, his teeth grinding, and makes a small choked-off noise. Stiles has a horrible image of Jackson vomiting over the idea of throwing up and then suffocating to death on his own vomit and then Lydia murdering Stiles slowly and painfully for harming her boyfriend. "It's fine," he says quickly. "Let's just... forget it." Stiles shifts, his ass going numb from the floor, and hopes vainly for something to attack them so the awkwardness will end. He checks his watch and groans. Another half hour at least until Allison meets him for practice.

"You don't have to dab at it like that," Jackson says abruptly, and Stiles looks up, a soft rag soaked at the tip with solvent in his fingers.

"What?"

"Smith and Wesson 3193 ladies," Jackson says, gesturing awkwardly. "There aren't any wood or plastic pieces, so you can soak the whole thing in the solvent."

Stiles blinks at him. "Oh. Thanks?" He looks down at his towel and frowns slightly, trying to work out how to proceed.

"I can show you," Jackson says, and the floorboards creak as he walks to the wall and slides down, less than a foot from Stiles.

"Yeah," Stiles says, "um, okay."

Jackson leans over, his body warmth pressing lightly against Stiles' side. "My parents are the Republican kind of rich California," he says, taking the rag from Stiles' hands and setting it aside. He smoothes his fingers over the towel and rearranges the parts carefully before reaching for the bottle of solvent. "You should let it soak for thirty minutes."

"Thanks," Stiles says, and his fingers start tapping on the floor again. They stare at the opposite wall for a while.

"Still a ladies gun," Jackson says.

"See how manly you feel when I shoot you with a ladies wolfsbane bullet," Stiles counters, and they glare at each other until Jackson's head cants sideways and Allison bounds through the door.

"You're not going in there," Derek orders, and Stiles snorts.

"We need to check out the warehouse to see what Hargreaves is up to, and the only one not going in there is you," he says. "Well, also not going in there will be Jackson. Or Scott, but he's still semi-recovering so I'm assuming he doesn't factor into this conversation-"

"Stiles," Derek says, and his claws dig into Stiles' sleeve. "I'm not going to let you." Stiles wraps his hand around Derek's fingers and squeezes. Derek makes a noise from the back of his throat, a high pitched whine of distress.

"Derek," Stiles says quietly, "you can't stop me."

/

There are things that Stiles' father tells him that would have made his mother angry, wisdom doled out late at night when his father slumps in the kitchen after a long day, mud on his boots, pouring out gold liquid into the glasses they used in their wedding.

"Someone points a gun at you," he says, "don't do as they say. They're going to kill you, your best move is to jerk and run."

"Okay dad," Stiles says, and digs in the fridge carefully, looking for the plate with the plastic wrap. "Mac and cheese night, low fat margarine and skim milk. You'll love it."

His father stares at the table without blinking, taps his fingers against the rim of the glass. "Harder to shoot a moving target then people think."

/

Stiles shuffles through the cafeteria line, balancing two pizza slices on one arm and shoving the other into the bin of chips, digging frantically as the people behind him bump up against his back, shoving impatiently. "Man down," he shrieks, as someone grabs him by the arm and starts to pull him back, "tag me out!"

"Man shut up," Scott says, grinning. "What'd you get?"

Stiles looks at the bags cramped in his fist. "Sour cream and onion," he reports, "aaaand, cheddar chives."

Scott takes one of the plates off Stiles' arm and makes a grab for a bag of chips. Stiles moves to block him and gets an elbow in the gut for his trouble. "No fair," he wheezes as they reach the front of the line. "You and your... were-" Stiles catches sight of the cafeteria worker, looking harassed and angry about her life. "withal," he finishes, "your amazing wherewithal."

"Seven dollars," the lady says, completely ignoring everyone and everything.

"He's got it," Stiles says, jerking a thumb towards Scott, who makes a wounded noise but digs in a pocket for a handful of crumpled one dollar bills.

They toss their backpacks onto an empty table and Stiles puts his bag of chips flat on the table so he can smack it with his fist and pop the seal with a bang. Little pieces of chip fly across the table and land on Scott's shirt, who doesn't notice at all because he's learned about 'star crossed lovers' in English class and is setting up a metaphor for his and Allison's epic throughout-the-ages romance.

"You would use your powers to marry Allison," Stiles complains, mostly to interrupt him more than anything else, "when you could have," he deepens his voice dramatically, "money! Power! Fame!"

Scott cups his hands around his mouth, lowering his tone to match Stiles, "World domination!"

"You spoke my summoning words?" Lydia intones, and promptly ignores Scott's existence completely. "We're still on for today?"

Stiles fishes in a pocket and comes up with a USB stick, fumbling slightly under the force that is Lydia Martin's full attention. "Yeah, here. Usual password."

"See you later, loser," Lydia says, more Heathers than Mean Girls, and walks off. Stiles watches her go with a faintly dazed expression.

Scott pokes him with the ends of his spork. "Are you imagining she's the Scully to your Mulder again?"

"We are literally compiling X-Files," Stiles says, turning back to his plate. "They had a baby in the last season, you know."

"Lydia Martin is never going to let you impregnate her," Scott says, and Stiles throws a napkin at his face.

"I want to believe," he says, and shoves his mouth full of pizza crust.

"Shit," Lydia pants, running her hands through her hair. "shit shit. Danny, go tell everyone."

"Don't die," Danny says, and runs.

"We have to go in there," Stiles says, "we have to deactivate it."

"Wolfsbane is poison for humans too," Lydia argues, "we need gasmasks, SWAT, nuke it from fucking orbit."

Stiles leans in to look through the pane of glass in the door. "Look Ripley, he's got the device to let it into the air _right there_."

"You don't know that," she argues, and Stiles laughs.

"No you're right," he says, "I think he's just auditioning for the next Ghostbusters movie. If we leave he could start dispersing it."

"We stay here," Lydia counters, "watch him and if he tries to leave-"

Stiles grabs her and pushes her close to the window. "Look. You see that hole cut into the pipes? They're painted blue."

"Blue like water," Lydia says, and curses expressively.

/

Stiles is with Lydia when the wendigo attacks them. Lydia is sitting on his jacket, which she'd practically ripped off him when she took one look at the couch and the floor and refused to directly touch either of them. They're pouring over two texts Stiles had ordered from sources Allison had recommended, making notes and cross-referencing against the information they've already got, when the wall between them explodes inwards.

Stiles doesn't even catch a good look at the thing at first, scrambling blind with bits of plaster, wood, paint chips and insulation raining down, dust heavy in the air. He crawls blindly towards Lydia, feeling out for her, and his outstretched hand meets hers. He yanks her to him and they fall against each other, knocking together painfully and shoving backwards, and that's when Stiles sees it.

"Holy Mary mother of god," he says. It's humanoid, but its limbs are longer than they should be, long and sinewy with wickedly curved claws and teeth that are so close to Stiles' face that he can say with a large amount of certainty they're more isosceles triangular than equilateral. It smiles at them, and a forked tongue flickers through the gaps in its fangs. Lydia clutches tighter at his hand.

"My bag," she says, and the creature hisses at them, its eyes glowing pale red. Stiles can see Lydia's totebag, lying propped against the wall-on the opposite side of the creature.

"Fuck," he says, and tries to squeeze Lydia's hand in a reassuring manner.

"Ow, asshole," Lydia hisses, and the creature takes a step towards them, his legs moving oddly, not like a human, hulking thigh muscles and feet more like back paws. Stiles realizes with a jolt what it reminds him of.

"Dear god," he says, "we're in that scene from Jurassic Park."

"Distract it," Lydia says, and shoves Stiles hard. He stumbles, and those pale red irises track him, its head cocked. Lydia edges around behind them, slowly, staring at her bag. She steps on a piece of plaster and it crackles under her foot. The creature's head whips around, and Stiles panics, yanks his shoe off and hits it square in the chest.

"Oh shit," he says, and runs, slipping on the floor, gait uneven from the difference in height from one leg to the other. He skids into the kitchen, his shoulder knocking hard against the doorframe, and five points of agony bite into the muscle of his upper arm before the entire limb goes numb. Stiles yelps, wrenching himself around, and stumbles to the ground. The creature looks down at him, teeth bared, and licks Stiles' blood off its claws.

Stiles tries to get up, and makes it to his knees before he staggers again, the numbness spreading up his arm and down to his chest. His legs feel heavy, weighted down, and Stiles tries to scuttle himself backwards. The creature takes another step forward, still sucking Stiles' blood off its fingers, and then something made of glass crashes into its back and catches fire.

It screams, a carnal howl deep in its throat, and thrashes, smashing the flimsy table in the room, claws digging ragged trenches into the walls. Stiles is losing feeling in his legs, and he falls onto his back, using all his energy to turn his head to face the creature.

It staggers towards him, still aflame, and Lydia steps into view behind him, pale and shaking but holding a glass bottle with a lit rag stuffed in the neck. "I fucking hate velociraptors," she says, and hits the creature in the back of the head with a throw so hard Stiles thinks Finstock should recruit her. The creature screams again, over and over, and collapses, twitching and crying out. Stiles watches it die, his eyes starting to close, and Lydia falls to her knees beside him.

"Stiles," she says desperately, "get up, Stiles, come on."

"Natasha Romanov," he says clearly, and she blinks at him. "you have the same hair."

"The house is on fire," Lydia says, pulling at him, "get the fuck up, Stilinksi." She starts to drag him, Stiles flopping limp and bumping over debris. Lydia pants in his ear, cursing, and dirty smoke hits Stiles' nose and throat.

"Again?" Stiles mumbles, and then Lydia's hands around his middle disappear, and Stiles is lifted up completely, cradled against a broader chest.

"This way," Lydia shouts from somewhere out of sight, and Stiles lets his eyes close.

"Derek," he mumbles, and passes out.

He wakes up sprawled out in the forest, mouth like cotton swabs. His whole body is tingling painfully, like every inch of him had fallen asleep and is just now waking up. He opens his eyes, wincing, and sees Lydia hovering over him, looking pissed.

"Thank god," she snaps, and hits him in a hug.

"Oh god the pain," Stiles yelps, "I can't even appreciate this moment." Lydia leans back and socks him hard in the shoulder.

"Don't lie," she says, and Stiles figures he is actually enjoying the contact on many levels so he doesn't argue.

"What happened?" he asks, and Derek appears from between two trees, shaking his head as he changes back from wolf to human.

"Wendigo," he grunts, and presses two fingers against Stiles' pulsepoint.

"Can't you hear my heart?" he asks, and then processes his statement. He whips his head around to Lydia.

"Wendigo?"

"Cannibalistic humans with supernatural abilities," Lydia says, "paralytic spit." She pulls her cell out of a pocket and pulls up the photo album. "I got pictures."

Stiles tries to focus. "But it didn't bite me," he says, "clawed me, and the paralysis spread from the scratches." Lydia looks thoughtful.

"Hollow claws? Like snake fangs."

"Any remains?" Stiles asks, and she shrugs.

"Fire is mostly out, but Derek wants to wait until the place has cleared."

"Smoke inhalation has a higher rate of injury than actual flames," Derek says shortly.

"Thank you, Smokey," Stiles says, coughing. "I gotta get home."

"You shouldn't drive," Derek says.

"I'll take you," Lydia offers, but Stiles is watching Derek, who is staring at his house, lit very gently with glowing embers, the Hale house ablaze once again.

"Derek," he croaks, but Lydia is tugging on his arm and Derek just shakes his head at him, a little twitch.

"Smoke won't bother me," he says, "I'll try to salvage the body."

"Get the claws," Lydia orders, and starts to pull Stiles to his feet. "And pictures."

Stiles makes a grab for Derek's sleeve. "Don't go in there," he says quietly, "don't go in there, Derek."

"Go home, Stiles," Derek says, and Lydia half carries him to the car.

"You smell like an ashtray," his father says.

"I'm secretly a pryomaniac," Stiles says, kicking his shoes off and starting for his room.

"Is Derek Hale buying you cigarettes?" Stiles actually barks out a laugh at that, and then deteriorates into a coughing fit that ends with a dry heave, halfway up the stairs. His father stares at him from the couch, still in uniform, the top buttons of his shirt undone.

"No dad," Stiles says finally. "I'm going to bed."

"Where's your jeep," his dad says flatly.

"At Derek's," Stiles replies casually, "Lydia gave me a lift, I think I've got a cold." He coughs again, pounding his own chest with his fist. "Gonna hit the hay."

"There was a fire reported at the Hale house," his father says, and pours himself another two fingers of bourbon. "Know anything about that?"

"Well dad," Stiles says lightly, "I was down to my last cigarette, and I thought, there's nicotine in fiberglass insulation, right? So I built this incendiary device, and-"

"Stop," his father says, fingers flexing, "just... stop," and Stiles stops. His father stares at him, and Stiles stares right back. "I-I love you, son," he says finally, and Stiles tamps down the jerk in his chest. He smiles casually.

"Goodnight dad," he says.

"Don't you dare die," Lydia says, and Stiles opens the door and goes into the lab.

There are heavy sheets of plastic hanging from the ceiling, and even Stiles can smell that something isn't right. The water in the pipe gurgles and rushes, and Stiles eases over to the dark machine resting next to it. He pushes the spout out of the way and crouches in front of it, trying to suss out how it works.

"Stand up," someone says from behind him, "slowly. Let me see your hands." Stiles raises his hands in the universal _don't shoot_ posture. He turns slowly.

"Mr. Hargreaves?" he guesses, and the man smiles. He's got dark hair trimmed brutally short in a military cut, dark fatigues and combat boots. He's also holding a gun that looks more like a hand cannon than a pistol. "I'm not a werewolf."

"You run with wolves," Hargreaves says coldly, and fires.

/

"So," Stiles says, "I think I might be a little gay. Just a little. Still enjoy Cylon Number Six, if you know what I mean."

"In what way is that relevant to quantitative analysis," Danny says without looking up from the charts in the back of his Chemistry textbook. Stiles shrugs, because it is Danny and he wasn't expecting much, and starts sketching a graph using his school ID card as a makeshift ruler.

"Wait," Danny says two minutes later, and sighs. "I'm sorry."

"About what," Stiles says, blinking. Danny frowns.

"That's-that's not what I would have wanted to hear when I came out," he says awkwardly.

"Is that what I'm doing," Stiles says, eyes going wide. "Let's not talk about feelings."

"Thank god," Danny mutters. "But uh, you know. Good on you."

"Do you find me more attractive now that you know that I, too, can play ball?"

"No," Danny says, "I find you less attractive. And Lithium doesn't burn yellow, it burns green." Stiles corrects his chart with a laboured sigh. "No one will hear it from me," Danny says, staring pointedly at his lab book.

Stiles fidgets. "Do you want to go kill something violently on xbox live?"

Danny heaves a relieved sigh and closes his books with a snap. "Please."

/

Stiles' earliest memory is of a supermarket. He remembers sitting on the edge of the lunch meat display while his mother compared the unit prices of bologna.

He remembers asking constantly if they could go home, and his mother's tired pleas for him to _be patient for mommy, baby_. He can't remember where his father was, but he wishes that he would've carried the plastic grocery basket for her, wishes he'd been less of a burden on her.

The bullet pings into the wall over Stiles shoulder, but that doesn't stop him from screaming like a little girl and throwing himself on the ground. "Are you crazy?" he shouts.

"Yes," Hargreaves says in an impressive moment of self-reflection. "But so was Rasputin. Step away from the dispersal device, please."

"Aconitum is toxic to humans," Stiles argues, "you're going to murder the whole town."

Hargreaves waves the gun in a dismissal. "The Chinese have been using it medicinally for thousands of years. I've perfected this blend, it will only cleanse the weres."

"You can't control the dosage if it's in the water," Stiles shouts, momentarily forgetting the fact that he's at gunpoint when confronted by such ridiculously _terrible_ logic.

"Walk," Hargreaves says, and uses the gun to point. "get in the corner."

_Harder to hit a moving target than people think,_ Stiles thinks, and lunges.

/

"What are we looking for again?" Scott rummages through a bargain bin of off-brand batteries.

"Copper wire," Stiles says, going on his tiptoes to read the signs between each aisle. "the spell calls for a conduit."

"Oh!" Scott says, yanking at Stiles' sleeve, "here, what about these?"

"Hangers," Stiles says, "perfect, yeah."

Scott's face falls. "But they're not copper."

"That's fine," Stiles says, trying to calculate how many they'll need. "it's symbolic. How many in a package?"

"Ten," Scott says, "how many should we get?"

"Ten," Stiles says, figuring an even hundred can't hurt. "okay come on, let's go."

"Wait," Scott hisses, "that's Mrs. Morris working the register." He pulls Stiles behind a cardboard cutout.

"Who the hell is Ms. Morris?"

"She's a receptionist at the hospital where Mom works," Scott says, peering at the cash registers. "She'll totally tell her I randomly bought a hundred metal wire hangers."

"So?" Stiles asks, his back rattling a display of fish oil vitamins. "maybe she'll think you're taking on a commitment to organize your closet?" Scott just looks at him, which is a fair rebuttal since Scott's mom once opened the door to his bedroom and started screaming things like _does FEMA know Katrina detoured through the West Coast on the way to New Orleans_ and _my god alert the CDC, Code Andromeda_.

"You buy it," Scott says.

"Oh yes, because it's so much better for the Sheriff to hear about us buying supplies for a magic spell. Just tell your mom it's for a science project."

"A hundred hangers for a science project?" Scott starts to back away and Stiles grabs him by the collar, his arms scraping against the hangers clutched to Scott's chest.

"You are not leaving me here by myself," he says. "I will _tell Derek on you_."

Scott freezes, an expression of complete betrayal across his face. "You'd _tattle_ on me?"

"Try me," Stiles hisses. Scott sighs.

"Okay," he says, tugging Stiles into the next aisle, "okay we'll just-we'll grab something else that's so weird she won't even notice the hangers."

Stiles stares at him. "Because that will better for your mom to hear about?"

"Here," Scott says, snatching a box from a hanging display. "condoms!"

"You want your mom _and Chris Argent_ to know you've been buying condoms?" Scott's face contorts in a way that suggests he's having a stroke. Then he lights up.

"You buy them! Your dad won't even stay in the room with you when there's sex on television."

"Scott," Stiles says, not without building hysteria, "you can't buy hangers and condoms! Do you have any idea what that looks like?"

"What does it look like?" Scott looks completely blank. Stiles resists the urge to experiment whether shaken werewolf syndrome exists.

"_It looks like a contingency plan, Scott!_" One of Stiles' flailing arms knocks a large plastic bottle of gummy multivitamins off the shelf, and it bounces off Scott's head on the way down.

"Abortion is probably better than what we're actually doing," Scott says. Stiles makes a frantic choking noise, and then thinks about it.

"_Our lives._"

"You know." Scott makes a vague gesture with one hand, the bunched hooks of five packages of gold-painted hangers coming perilously close to Stiles' face. He shifts awkwardly. "You're my best friend."

"I-" Stiles stutters, rubbing a hand to the back of his neck. "Man, quit it with the puppy eyes."

Scott pulls a face. "Kate Argent used to compare me to a puppy." Stiles shudders.

"Ex-nay on baby dog metaphors," he says, "roger that."

Mrs. Morris leans over the counter. "You boys gonna buy anything?" Stiles shoves the condoms behind a box of diet pills.

"Just the hangers," he says, dragging Scott up to the register. "We're stocking up for the Apocalypse. Screw the Mayans, it'll come in a wave of freak animal attacks."

"Amen," she says.

/

Stiles doesn't realize he's lost his Adderall until he's in his room, undoing the button on his jeans. He empties his pockets onto the dresser, a couple of coins and a little knife from one side, a cheap plastic lighter from a backpocket. He shoves his hand into his right hand side front pocket and doesn't touch rounded plastic. He goes to his bag and empties it, papers and folders and gel pens raining to the ground.

"No no no no," he chants, frantically unzipping the inner compartments. Then he yanks his jeans back on and grabs his wallet and his car keys.

"Where are you going?" his father calls as Stiles rattles down the stairs, and Stiles slips on one heel and trips down three steps before regaining his balance.

"Geez," Stiles says, one hand on his heart. "Thought you were working nights today."

"Clearly," his father says. "kind of late to be heading out, isn't it?"

"I left my magic pills at Jackson's," Stiles says, "I've got two tests tomorrow, so I thought I'd go pick them up real fast."

"Your Adderall?"

"No," Stiles says, shrugging on his jacket. "My oxycontin."

"Jackson's," his father says flatly. "Jackson who filed a restraining order against you."

"Yeah," Stiles says absently, checking his phone before slipping it away. "won't take long."

His father is quiet for a few beats. "You spend a lot of time at Jackson's?"

Stiles stares at him with one hand on the doorknob. "I told you we smoothed things over."

"The same way you smoothed things over with Derek Hale?"

Stiles shrugs and opens the door. "Yeah sure. Listen, I'm gonna go and-"

He hears his father sets down his beer bottle with a heavy clink. "Because the gps in your phone says you've spending a lot of time at the Hale house."

Stiles goes completely and utterly still. He closes the door and stares at it, a flush rising hot on the back of his neck. He speaks without turning around. "You've been tracking my phone."

"Stiles-" Stiles can feel something ugly rising in his chest, rolling in his belly.

"You've been tracking my phone?" he shouts, spinning on his heel. "What the hell, Dad?"

His father matches him in anger. "What the hell am I supposed to do?"

"Maybe not go _completely Orwellian_ on me-"

"You're out at all hours, you go missing, you're spotted at the scenes of bloody and violent crimes-"

"Hey," Stiles says, putting one hand to his forehead like he's having a sudden epiphany, "maybe later we can go over to Deatons and you can implant a tracking chip in my shoulder, for a more up to date map of my activities. In real time!"

His father slams a plate into the sink so hard it shatters. "What is it, Stiles? Gangs? Drugs? Girls?" He pauses, and Stiles' hand clenches around the casing of his phone so hard his knuckles creak. His father's voice comes out in a strangled croak. "Boys?"

Stiles physically flinches. "Yeah," he says, in a voice he doesn't recognize. "Derek and Jackson and I snort coke and then have an orgy, right before heading out to the Yakuza initiation ceremonies."

"You're grounded," his father says, and Stiles can tell, he can tell that his father is desperate and confused and reaching at straws and he knows that his father loves him, he knows all of it and he just doesn't care.

He throws his phone at the wall, an overhanded fling harder than any lacrosse shot he's ever taken in his life, and feels vicious satisfaction at the smashing noise it makes, the way it mirrors the shattered expression on his father's face.

"I think I've been grounded for long enough," he says, and doesn't close the door behind him.

The gun goes off again, but Stiles hits Hargreaves in a tackle Derek would be proud of, grunting with the impact. He scrabbles to his feet and kicks the gun away before Hargreaves hits in the back of the calves. Stiles crashes to his knees and Hargreaves throws him through the air.

"Shit," Stiles pants, getting to his feet and digging in his pocket. "Freeze, motherfucker," he says, and pulls out his little pistol. "It's a ladies gun," he says, "but it'll kill you just as dead."

/

Stiles starts burning through his Adderall the second he starts to suspect Scott is a werewolf. He crunches it, something he's absolutely not supposed to do but he knows that it releases it faster and in higher doses and he needs that clean cut rush in his brain, the way he can feel his synapses firing and how he can wield his attention like the scope of a laser cutter, boring down on whatever he needs to do until it's done.

It's also shamefully easy to scam more pills out of his doctors, after a nice clean record like his. He has almost three times the Adderall he's had in the past, all with refills remaining. No wonder he keeps seeing Law and Order episodes about the teenage abuses of pills like these, it's too damn easy by half.

/

"Stiles," someone says, someone who smells like bleach and surgical soap, "come on, honey, wake up."

"Mom?" Stiles mumbles, and the hands on his shoulders still. Then they shake him hard.

"Come on, Stiles, up before I get the baseball bat." Stiles opens his eyes.

"Mrs. Scott's Mom," he says, and she brushes her hand over his forehead very gently before thwapping him upside the head.

"I have to go to work," she says. "but I'm uncomfortable having vagrants sleep on my stoop. Scott's in his room."

"Thanks," Stiles mutters, the argument with his Dad coming back in a rush. His spine is stiff from sleeping on the front step, and his muscles are cramped from the cold.

"Stiles," she says quietly, and Stiles cracks his neck to avoid looking her in the face. She's wearing light blue scrubs, patterned with giraffes and hippos.

"Working pediatrics today, huh?" he asks, forcing a grin. She sighs at him.

"Next time just use your key," she says. "and lock that door behind you."

"You going to kill me, boy?" Hargreaves asks, and smirks. "You haven't got the balls."

"You're going to jail," Stiles says, "you see this, all this shit you've got? That's premeditated planning for an attempted biological terrorist attack. You're not going to get a trial and you're not going to jail. You're going straight to Guantanamo, god bless the USA."

Hargreaves just laughs. "I'm never going to stop," he says, "I will never stop protecting humans from monsters, and my mission is _righteous_."

Stiles stares at him. "You won't," he says numbly, "you really won't stop and you don't care how many people you kill."

"The innocents will takes their places in Heaven as holy martyrs," Hargreaves says quietly, and he doesn't look crazy or fevered, he looks steady, calm. Serene.

Stiles sways, and he realizes there's a lancing pain in his side. He presses his hands to it and they come away red and wet. "You can make this right," Hargreaves says helpfully. "It's not your fault, you've been mislead. Come back the fold and your soul will be healed."

Stiles' vision starts to go hazy. "I've been shot," he says numbly.

/

The first person Stiles ever killed used to be Melanie Gold. Stiles remembers seeing her around school, books tucked up against her chest, pushing her glasses up on the bridge of her nose with one finger. She had dull dark hair pulled back into a bun and plain features, before she ritualistically slaughtered her baby sister in the school cafeteria at midnight and ate her heart.

Stiles and Jackson were breaking in to make illegal copies of school records when they heard a baby crying, and walked in just in time to see her bite into something very small and red and dripping. They'd suspected a substitute art teacher, and for three full seconds they all gape at each other in surprise.

"Is that a heart?" Jackson asks, voice unnaturally high. "Is she eating a heart?" Stiles considers this a rhetorical question, because: a) they are at the school to find evidence of someone eating a heart and b) she is clearly eating a fucking heart.

But-"Oh shit," Stiles breathes, "it's a baby's heart." Melanie hisses at them, and licks blood off her lips.

"No fucking shit," Jackson says, and starts to step forward. He slips a jagged-edged obsidian knife out of its soft leather pouch. Stiles grabs him by the shirtsleeve.

"She's not an azijhtee," Stiles says, backing away slowly and dragging Jackson with him. "it's not an animal heart. That knife isn't going to do anything." Melanie hisses at them, and electric blue designs rise on her skin, swirling and crackling with static. "Um," Stiles says, and then she flings lightning at them. Stiles freezes, watching the bolt of light come towards him, but Jackson shoves him, hard enough to send him skidding across the cheap tile, and the wall behind where he'd been standing is scorched through, black and smelling strongly of melted plastic.

"I can't believe this is my life," Stiles says as they sprint down a hallway. "call Lydia and Scott."

"Turn here," Jackson says, and yanks them sideways as another lance of lightning shatters a glass trophy case less than two feet from Stiles' elbow. He shoves his cellphone back in his pocket. "Deaton isn't answering, Derek's on his way." They spill into the library, and Jackson shoves three large tables up against the double doors. His phone beeps.

"Baby heart," Stiles says, "baby heart, I know what that is, baby heart." The doors rattle with a boom, and Jackson grabs him by the back of the shirt. Stiles presses a hand to his head. "Why is that familiar?"

"Seriously," Jackson says, "why is that familiar, you freak." He tugs Stiles along and they exit through the back doors. "Scott's on his way from City Hall. Lydia and Danny are splitting up to find Deaton."

"We need a computer," Stiles says, digging in his pocket for his USB stick.

"Why? We know who she is, let's go outside and wait for backup."

Stiles shakes his head. "No, I know what she is. Melanie has a baby sister."

"Had," Jackson says, stepping in front of Stiles to check around a corner before letting them continue.

"Exactly." Stiles pulls up a mental map of the school. "Clizyati, they eat their own families to gain power. Lydia and I wrote them up last week, but I can't remember what kills them. They're related, power-wise, to the azijhtee, so we might need a specific weapon."

"We should still regroup and find her later-" Jackson stops dead. "The Golds have four daughters." Stiles grunts in acknowledgment. "We can double back to the library," Jackson offers, "I'll tell the others to find Melanie's address."

"Good plan," Stiles says, "but not the library, it's all Macs. The database might not load. _I'm a PC_, Jackson."

"Freak," Jackson says, but changes direction. "Harris uses a PC, doesn't he?"

"God," Stiles mutters, "like I need to spend more time in Harris' domain." The classroom is dark, faint moonlight shuttering in from between the blinds. He trips over three chairs and knocks over a metal trashcan on his way to the teacher's desk, the trashcan rattling and clanging loudly to the floor.

"Jesus Christ," Jackson mutters, and Stiles ignores him in favour of booting up the computer. He plugs in the USB stick. "No word from Deaton," Jackson reports, face lit up by the screen of his phone. "Derek and Scott are on their way to the Gold's."

Stiles smacks the side of the clunky monitors. "I think this is running on Windows 95." Jackson opens his mouth to snap a response and is interrupted by their barricade jumping almost a foot away from the door with a thundering boom. Jackson is across the room in the time it takes Stiles to blink, and he singlehandedly shoves the piles of desks and chairs back against the door, leaning his weight against it.

"You said she'd want to eat her family," he accuses. "We sent Scott away!"

"I thought she would," Stiles says, "look, this is good news. The big mojo comes from eating your own family, so she's less powerful now than she would be."

"I'm so reassured," Jackson snaps, reaching out to grab another desk to add to their barricade. "Faster would be better," he says, grunting as another wave of force slams into him.

Stiles flaps his hands frantically. "It's installing updates! It says I can't turn it off."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Jackson shouts. The barricade jumps again, and the desks abruptly disintegrate, bursting into grey and black ash. Jackson steps back and throws his jacket aside, where the it smolders faintly. He grabs the door handle and grunts in pain, the skin of his hands burning audibly. The smell of searing meat fills the air, and Jackson leans his weight backwards, physically holding the door closed. "Stiles!"

Stiles can actually feel the hysterics rising inside him. "_Twelve out of fifteen updates installed,_" he shrieks. The door handle under Jackson's hand goes red-hot, and he stumbles back. Stiles gives up on the database and yanks the USB out of the drive.

"Get out the knife," he orders. Jackson's palms are red and already starting to blister, but he squeezes the cloth-wrapped hilt hard.

"You said the knife might not work," he says, but he pushes Stiles into a corner and stands between him and the door.

"Both creatures are from the same lore," Stiles says, "Navajo, they're even supposed to use the same kind of magic. It's worth a shot." The door handle pops out of the door and bounces on the floor, and everything goes quiet. Jackson takes a deep breath.

"And if it doesn't work?" he whispers.

Stiles swallows down a bout of nausea. "Rip her head off and throw it far, far away. Gives us time to run." The door starts to open, creaking slowly, inch by inch.

"Oh fuck it," Jackson mutters, and rips the door wide open. Melanie hits him in the chest with a lance of light, and Jackson flies backwards to crash into the opposite wall, the knife clattering out of his hand. Melanie comes through the door, smiling, strands of her hair rising off her scalp to stand straight out. Stiles can smell ozone, and there are sparks of blue in the air. Jackson shifts, snarling, and takes a swipe at her with his claws. She takes the blow across one cheek and smiles. She rips his shirt open and places a palm flat against his chest.

"Run, Stiles," Jackson rasps, and then convulses, the veins in his neck standing out, making strained noises of pain. Melanie laughs, and leans in to lick Jackson's skin, right over where his heart would be. Her tongue crackles with electricity.

"Yum," she whispers, her teeth elongated. Her baby sister's blood is streaked under her ear. "I'm going to eat you alive," she promises, and that's when Stiles stabs her in the side of the throat with the obsidian blade, putting his entire weight into the strike.

"Jackson is not a toad, you wannabe Ororo bitch," he pants, and pulls the blade out. The tip breaks off in his neck, but Stiles is pretty sure he hit something important because he's hit in the chest with a small wave of blood. His hand drips with it. "Jesus," he says, his vision tunneling, and staggers to Jackson's side.

"Ow," Jackson mumbles. Stiles presses his fingers to the underside of Jackson's jaw and feels for a pulse.

"I have no idea what heartbeat rate is normal for werewolves," he says. Jackson groans.

"I'm healing," he mutters, and Stiles helps him sit up, props him against the wall. He stares at Melanie's body, lying facedown in a puddle of her own blood, and watches a milky film grow over her eyes. Stiles shivers.

"Tuna fish," he says blankly. Jackson blinks at him.

"What?"

"Tuna fish casserole," Stiles says, sitting back against the wall next to Jackson. "her mom made us a tuna fish casserole after the wake. It was good." He picks at the seam of his jeans. The front of his hoodie is heavy with blood. "I guess I shouldn't go to Melanie's wake." Jackson coughs a little, rubbing at the red handprint on his chest. The wind blows through a broken window, making the shards of glass tinkle against each other.

"My parents didn't have a wake," Jackson says. His shoulder presses lightly against Stiles'.

"You didn't miss anything," Stiles mutters.

"I still probably shouldn't go to hers," Jackson says, and Stiles barks out a laugh. Jackson tilts his head to the side. "Derek's here. Should I move the body?"

"No," Stiles says. "that might make the police think it's a kidnapping or double homicide. She's got her sister's blood all over her, we could just put the handle of the knife in her hand, wipe up our shoeprints? If they find any other evidence that comes back to us they won't question it, we come here everyday."

"It's a good plan," Derek says, coming out of the shadows of the hallways. "do it." Jackson moves to his feet, fluid, and leaves at a trot, muttering about the last place he saw the janitor's closet. Derek crouches next to Melanie, head tilted.

"Jackson should see Deaton," Stiles says, "magicky injuries, his heartrate was erratic."

"We'll go after he cleans up," Derek says, rising. "are you injured?"

"I killed her," Stiles says, and somehow saying it makes it impossible to ignore, "oh my god I killed her." Her blood is still warm on his hands. "I'm gonna be sick," he chokes, and Derek has already scooped up the trashcan and held it under him. Stiles retches, coughing, and starts to wipe his mouth with his sleeve before he sees that's he covered in her blood. His breathing starts to quicken.

"Off," Derek says gruffly, and yanks the hoodie over Stiles' head. He pulls the bottom of Stiles' shirt up and uses it to wipes Stiles' face. He dumps it into the trashcan and pulls up the plastic liner, tying it off. His palm settles onto the nape of Stiles' neck, resting on the top knob of his spine, and Derek's fingers squeeze with a reassuring pressure.

"I'm okay," Stiles says, which is sort of an obvious lie because he's in the empty classroom of a teacher who gives Stiles highly concentrated vials of hydrochloric acid in the hopes he'll permanently disfigure himself, sitting on the ground next to one of his classmates like the weirdest high school remix of Macbeth ever, complete with Derek Hale trying to offer him emotional comfort.

"You will be," Derek says simply, like he knows it's true, and Stiles takes one deep breath after another, until his vision stops shaking and he feels less like curling into the fetal position and crying hysterically.

"Yeah," he says, and Jackson backs into the room, holding bloody towels. Derek lets go of Stiles' neck and goes to help him mop up their bloody footprints.

What Stiles remembers most isn't killing Melanie, or even how Melanie had hugged him at his mom's funeral. It's how her blood under his fingernails wouldn't come off until he sucked it out with his teeth; the taste of her against his tongue, a mouthful of pennies.

/

"Hey," Stiles says in a croak, rubbing at his eyes, and Scott sits up, his bedhead completely ridiculous.

"Stiles?"

Stiles kicks off his shoes. "Your mom let me in."

"Smell funny," Scott mumbles, still bleary. "outside and cold."

"I spent the night on your front porch. Not bad, really." Stiles tosses his jacket aside and stands at the foot of Scott's bed, head bowed. "I had a fight with my dad." Scott's eyes go wide, and he pushes his hair out of his face. Stiles braces himself.

"Come on," Scott says, tugging on Stiles' arm until he stretches out on his back on the mattress. Scott tugs the covers over him. "We'll play hooky," Scott says, not mentioning his father at all, and Stiles slumps in relief. The bed is warm from Scott's body heat, and smells a little like him, comfortable and familiar.

"Thanks," Stiles mumbles. Scott snuffles.

"Don't be stupid," he says, the same way he did when Stiles apologized for crying the first time they hung out after the funeral, and it's that more than anything else that makes Stiles press his face into the sheets and crumble a little, taking shuddering breaths and trying to control the shaking of his shoulders.

Scott presses up against him a little, and slings an arm over Stiles' waist. "Stiles," he says, and Stiles wipes at his eyes.

"Fucking werewolves," he says finally.

"Preach," Scott says seriously, and Stiles rolls over to lie on his back. Scott slings an arm around his shoulders and pulls him in until their temples knock together.

"Leave me alone to die," Stiles moans, mortified. "it's Beacon Hills, shouldn't take long."

Scott rolls over to give Stiles a full body hug. "No homo," he adds, and Stiles surprises himself with a laugh.

"Let me put it in the water," Hargreaves says, rising slowly to his feet. Stiles staggers sideways, leaning on a desk for support.

"Stay where you are," he orders, blinking rapidly. He can feel liquid running down his side.

"I have to finish my mission," Hargreaves says. Stiles feels like he's very far away.

"You're never going to stop," he repeats, more to himself. "Never."

"You're doing the right thing," Hargreaves says, one hand stretching out for a button on the machine.

"Yes," Stiles says, "I know."

He shoots Hargreaves until the gun clicks empty.

/

"What are you doing here?" Derek asks, loud enough that Stiles can hear it through the closed window, and Stiles lets out a shriek that would put SyFy original movie extras to shame. He scrubs a hand over his face and leans over to open the car door.

"I was sleeping," he says waspishly. "Now I'm cold, get in here." He slides over on the backseat and Derek gets in the jeep, closing the door behind him. Derek brings in a wave of cold air, and Stiles shivers.

"Why?"

"Because humans need to sleep," Stiles says, "even humans who ingest a large amount of Adderall."

"Why are you sleeping in your car," Derek clarifies. "in the school parking lot."

"None of your business," Stiles says, and tries to stretch out his spine.

"Scott said you were going back to your father's today." Derek is still utterly expressionless.

"Scott's a worrier," Stiles says.

"Get in the front and start the car," Derek orders, and Stiles sets his shoulders mulishly.

"You can't make me go back," he says. "My dad knows I'm fine."

"Do you we need to have the conversation about your throat and my teeth again?"

"I'm not going back," he snarls, and Derek grabs him by the shoulder and throws him into the driver's seat. Stiles' knee knocks against the gearshift painfully, his elbow blares the horn before he scrambles himself around and gets situated. "The hell," he yelps.

"Start the car," Derek says again, stonefaced.

"Listen K-Stew," Stiles snaps, "I would rather you actually rip my throat out with your teeth than have you mediate a father and son reunion."

Derek makes a frustrated noise. "You are so annoying," he snarls, and leaves, slamming the car door behind him. Stiles lowers his head to the steering wheel and takes a deep breath. Then Derek slams into the passenger seat and Stiles jumps so hard his head bangs on the roof.

"Derek you asshole," Stiles says, clutching at his chest. "are you seriously trying to give me high blood pressure?"

"Drive," Derek says, looking put upon, "to _my house_."

"Oh," Stiles says, stilted. "Well now I just feel like an asshole."

"It suits you," Derek says, and Stiles fingers slip on his keys. He laughs.

"Yeah, okay," he says, and starts the car.

/

Stiles happiest memory, his patronus memory, is of being sick. Started as a cold, before it got into his lungs and shot his body temperature up to a hundred and two. He was checked into the hospital for overnight observation, and the pediatric nurse on call was Scott's mom, who rolled him into his mother's room and pushed the bedrails down so she could tuck him under her chin. His father uses his badge to sneak in past visitors hour and brings him a greasy bag of junk food, and they watch a movie on television together while they eat.

Stiles pushes the machine until it topples over, and the exertion makes his legs give out. He crawls to Hargreaves' body and checks his pulse, then sits back on his heels and stares at the man he's murdered. Breathing is becoming more and more difficult, and his lips and tongue start to tingle numbly, like muscles falling asleep.

"Stiles!" someone shouts, and he lurches up, stumbling for the door. He makes it as far as the desk, and he collapses into the chair, breathing hard. The scarf has come undone in the struggle, and he pulls it off and tosses it aside.

"Derek," he says, blinking. Derek's face is framed in the window of the door, looking pinched and frantic. "Don't come in!" he shouts, adrenaline spiking again, "I think there's wolfsbane in the air."

"It's locked," Derek shouts, "you have to come undo the lock, Stiles."

"Tired," Stiles mumbles.

"Stiles!" Derek shouts, "listen to me. The door is reinforced, I can't break it. You have to come let me in or you're going to die." Stiles pushes himself up, looking at Derek's face in the window, and manages almost three whole steps before he collapses.

The next thing he knows he's in Jackson's car. "What," he mumbles, and Danny's face comes into view.

"Stay awake," he orders. "I picked the lock, by the way, you owe me."

"Here," Lydia says from somewhere out of view, "give him this, charcoal."

"We're almost there," Scott says from the front, "I've called ahead, there's a gurney waiting."

"Stay awake," Danny says, eyes wide and frightened, and Stiles can hear Jackson cursing as the car accelerates.

/

"Don't take this the wrong way," Stiles says, grimacing as he tries to get the gritty morning taste out of his mouth, "but I think Scott's welcome mat is more comfortable than your couch." Derek scratches at his scalp, and Stiles takes a reassuring moment to notice that Derek doesn't actually wake up with his hair automatically styled.

"You want eggs?"

"Yeah," Stiles says, and Derek drags a pan from the cupboard and a carton of eggs from his fridge. He cracks one on the edge of the counter, leaving a yellow smear on the laminate, and drops the egg into the pan. "Jesus," Stiles says, standing up and shoving Derek aside with his hip. "Are you kidding me?" Stiles picks bits of eggshell out of the yolk, muttering to himself about being raised by wolves.

Derek stays where Stiles had shoved him, close enough for Stiles to feel his body heat, yawning once in a while and drinking instant coffee out of a chipped mug as Stiles cracks two more eggs and shakes the pan back and forth, watching the yolk run. It's all very domestic, and Stiles has to shake himself a little to jar him out of the moment.

"Eggs!" he announces, and then winces, because they look pretty terrible. Derek produces two forks and they eat straight out of the pan, standing over the sink and clashing the tines of their forks together in short but intense battles for the best pieces of eggwhite.

Derek licks at his fingers. "Good," he declares, looking pleased, and Stiles snorts, crowding closer to Derek's chest to rinse the pan in the sink.

"I would have thought you wanted meat," he says, looking around for a sponge. There isn't one, so he shrugs and leaves the pan in the basin.

"Eggs are an excellent source of protein," Derek says seriously, like he spends time in the grocery store analyzing the nutrition of his diet and purchasing food accordingly.

"Whatever," Stiles says, "is your tapwater safe to drink?"

"It is for me," Derek says, and wanders off to take a shower.

Stiles opens his eyes in the hospital. His throat feels scraped raw and his stomach is cramped up into knots.

"Stiles," his father says from his bedside, red eyes framed by dark circles.

"Derek," he mumbles, and blinks.

"Outside," his father says, "with Lydia, Danny, Scott, Jackson and Allison." The chair creaks as his father's weight shifts. "You've got good friends."

"Yeah," Stiles says, and swallows hard.

"Come home," his father says quietly. "I'll beg if I have to."

Stiles takes a deep breath. His sheets smell like Allison's shampoo, Danny's cologne, the air freshener Jackson uses in his car, and over everything else is the leather of Derek's jacket.

"We have a lot to talk about," he says, and reaches for his father's hand.

/

Stiles barely remembers bleeding out in the back of Jackson's car, his fingers slipping on the leather interior and wet with his own blood. What he remembers most clearly is the feel of Derek's hipbone under his ear, being cradled in Derek's lap and Derek's forehead pressed against his, his breath damp and hot, _Stiles, Stiles_.


End file.
